Genealogies and Theories: Gender, Feminist, and Queer Theories

This course surveys the history/ies and development of feminist, gender and/or queer theories, with an emphasis on theories produced in the 20th and early 21st centuries. The course familiarizes students with key feminist, gender and queer theoretical debates and concepts, requires them to read, think, speak, and write critically about these theories; and encourages them to employ these feminist and queer theories and concepts in critical analyses of contemporary institutions and practices, as well as in their own lives. Topics examined include power, privilege, domination, identity, difference, intersectionality, post/colonialism, trans/nationalism, (standpoint) epistemology, anti/essentialism, discourse, performativity, gender, femininity, masculinity, sexuality, embodiment, and cyborgs.